AMD RX 7900 XTX Geekbench 5 Vulkan Results Match RTX 4080

AMD Radeon RX 7900 Series Deep Dive
(Image credit: AMD)

Performance leaks of AMD's upcoming Radeon RX 7900 XTX were recently shared by @BenchLeaks on Twitter, showcasing OpenCL and Vulkan compute scores in Geekbench 5. The RDNA3 GPU showed very favorable results in the Vulkan benchmark, yielding similar performance to Nvidia's RTX 4080. The OpenCL results aren't as promising, though Geekbench in general isn't the best indicator of real-world gaming performance. Still, it does support AMD's claims that the RX 7900 XTX will compete well against the Nvidia RTX 4080.

The Radeon RX 7900 XTX ran a score of 179,579 in Geekbench 5's Vulkan benchmark, and 228,647 points in the OpenCL benchmark. This puts the RX 7900 XTX right in line with the RTX 4080's score of 178,105 points in Vulkan, which is just 0.8% slower than the 7900 XTX. But the 7900 XTX falls behind the RTX 4080 in the OpenCL benchmark, where the RTX 4080's score of 264,482 points is 15.7% faster than the RX 7900 XTX.

The following 4080 and 4090 scores were taken from a multitude of user uploads to Geekbench 5's browser, which we then average down to one value. Unfortunately, we had to do this since Geekbench 5 does not have any official RTX 40-series compute benchmark scores available to compare against.

Swipe to scroll horizontally
GPU ModelVulkanOpen CLVulkan Perf DifferenceOpenCL Perf Difference
RX 7900 XTX179,579228,647BaselineBaseline
RTX 4080178,105264,4820.8% Slower15.7% Faster
RTX 4090203,916344,80614% Faster50% Faster

The RX 7900 XTX results aren't too surprising, as AMD's recent GPU architectures have rarely been able to match Nvidia's counterparts in terms of raw compute, which is what OpenCL measures. Gaming workloads on the other hand have shown competitive results from the previous RX 6000-series, and we're seeing the same trend here.

The 7900 XTX's performance characteristics in Vulkan are particularly interesting against the RTX 4080. AMD has said in the past that the 7900 XTX was not intended to fight against Nvidia's 4090, but rather face off against the Nvidia's runner-up RTX 4080 GPU. We don't know if this was AMD's intent all along, but either way, the Geekbench 5 Vulkan results  we are seeing here today certainly back up that statement.

Thankfully we won't have long to wait before we'll have our own full testing results. AMD's Radeon RX 7900 XTX and 7900 XT will arrive on December 13, just one week away. Stay tuned for our official reviews, and we'll see how the RX 7900 XTX and RX 7900 XT fare against Nvidia's RTX 4080 and plenty of other GPUs across a wide range of benchmarks.

Aaron Klotz
Freelance News Writer

Aaron Klotz is a freelance writer for Tom’s Hardware US, covering news topics related to computer hardware such as CPUs, and graphics cards.

  • kal326
    Well good that they can at least probably trade blows with the 4080, but I would have liked to see the XTX be a bit further ahead. Maybe final release or a few revisions of drivers will help push things ahead. Makes the $100 less XT seem to be in a bit of a weird spot pricing wise.
    Reply
  • -Fran-
    The obvious question I have is: how do the 3090 and 6950XT compare in these?

    Regards.
    Reply
  • Alvar "Miles" Udell
    For $1000 + AIB custom markup I am not in the least interested, I don't care how it performs.
    Reply
  • ManDaddio
    Praise AMD for their cheap $1000+ GPUs. They just love their customers.
    All the while NVIDIA even though their GPUs are more expensive to make charge more. Bad NVIDIA. Praise loving and caring AMD. I wish all corporations were like them.
    AMD also releases worse CPUs then their 3D chips which should just be what they produce except maybe 7950. Praise AMD. They are so good.
    Reply
  • kiniku
    ManDaddio said:
    Praise AMD for their cheap $1000+ GPUs. They just love their customers.
    All the while NVIDIA even though their GPUs are more expensive to make charge more. Bad NVIDIA. Praise loving and caring AMD. I wish all corporations were like them.
    AMD also releases worse CPUs then their 3D chips which should just be what they produce except maybe 7950. Praise AMD. They are so good.
    Yeah. I'm also deeply touched by AMD's selfless benevolence.
    Reply
  • setx
    ManDaddio said:
    Praise AMD. They are so good.
    It's not that hard to be good if compared to nVidia.
    Praise AMD that G-SYNC is dead and we don't have to pay $100 more for decent monitors.
    Praise AMD that next-generation of graphics API Vulkan is open for all and not like CUDA.
    Reply
  • Blacksad999
    ManDaddio said:
    Praise AMD for their cheap $1000+ GPUs. They just love their customers.
    All the while NVIDIA even though their GPUs are more expensive to make charge more. Bad NVIDIA. Praise loving and caring AMD. I wish all corporations were like them.
    AMD also releases worse CPUs then their 3D chips which should just be what they produce except maybe 7950. Praise AMD. They are so good.

    I find it amusing that people now think that $1000 is an acceptable price. lol Once you factor in the AIB mark up, these will be the same price as a 4080, yet with a worse feature set. Basically, the same old song and dance by AMD.
    Reply
  • Amdlova
    With a 1000 dollar gpu I will praises to apple, apple given a good cpu and gpu to us.
    Reply
  • DavidLejdar
    Seems to be good news for GPU enthusiasts. Even if one was considering to get a 4080, having competition means that instead of charging a premium, the price may get pushed down a bit. And that in turn could also mean that the price e.g. for 3090 gets pushed down a bit as well, and so on.

    The top tier of new GPUs releasing at over $1,000, that isn't new. But sure is quite pricey for a hobby, especially on low income and with high rent. In some cases it can also be about accountancy though - meaning that when someone spends hundreds every year on loot boxes and other microtransactions, that is a lot of money there which could pay even for 4K gaming hardware instead.
    Reply
  • CmdrSloth
    These comments man lol, absolutely bizarre.

    There is zero common sense in complaining about low income and high rent when talking about FLAGSHIP cards.

    Why does someone on low income and paying high rent NEED a flagship card?

    There is an absolute abundance of RTX 3000 series and cheap RX 6000 series on the market now, why in the WORLD does someone barely making ends meet NEED a flagship card that is just releasing? Absolutely bizarre line of thought.

    Loot boxes? Microtransactions? Who NEEDS these to play games on low income? What in the world?
    Reply